Livin' Z Life - Historical Archive

[Arne]

7 Jun 2006 - Small Stuff

Since the last update I've been working on a few smaller things, as I still prepare for rebuilding and installing the 240Z motor. A while back I bypassed the heater so that I could remove and inspect the heater core. After reconnecting the heater hose at the engine, I got under the dash and removed the entire heater box. Happily, neither the heater box nor the heater core itself look too bad. The box is not rusty, and the heater core (which is all metal, unlike modern aluminum/plastic cores) shows no signs of internal leaks. The heater control valve is bad, but I expected that. All of the foam seals on the heater box are deteriorated or gone, so those will need to be replaced before I paint the box and put it back. The core had a fair amount of rusty coolant in it, so I will take it to a radiator shop and have them flush, test and repair it as necessary.

Last weekend I actually took the Z to a small local Z show and shine, hosted by a local stereo shop. The invitees were members of a local Z group. My poor car would have won "ugliest Z" award, had there been any awards at all, but it was still fun to chat with some other Z enthusiasts. And this coming weekend Deanna and I are travelling north (not in the Z, it's not ready for a long trip) to a classic Datsun gathering in Canby, OR. Looking forward to the swap meet on Saturday, and the car show on Sunday. Who knows what I'll drag home...

[Arne]

17 Jun 2006 - Still Slow Going

Still fiddling until I begin the engine rebuild. (Soon, I promise.) We did attend both days of the meet in Canby, but didn't bring anything home. In fact, the swap meet was pretty lame. So in the future, I don't imagine I'll go to both days, just Sunday to look at cars.

But for looking at old Datsuns, Sunday was pretty good. Lots of nice cars to look at, and I met a number of other Z owners with whom I've swapped messages on the Internet. So that was definitely worthwhile.

Back here at home, I've got the heater box cleaned and the first coat of paint applied. I also have begun stripping the paint off the steering wheel, in preparation for repainting the spokes on it.

[Arne]

3 Jul 2006 - Short Break

It's been a while since my last post, but not a lot has happened in that time. I did finish re-finishing the steering wheel spokes, and I think it turned out pretty nice. I stripped and re-painted the spokes, but left the faux-wood rim alone. Trying to maintain its patina, I guess.

 

Other than that, I'm still fiddling with the heater box, and I did order a full set of six exhaust valves. After thinking it over, I decided that if I'm going to have the head done at all, I may as well do it right. So my plan was updated to figure on replacing all twelve valves, and all the valve guides and springs as well.

But all this could change soon, as there are other things in the works. Details to come later, stay tuned...

[Arne]

9 Jul 2006 - I Need a Truck Again

Yeah, I need to borrow a truck again. Because next weekend I'm going to pickup another 240Z, to be used as a parts car. This one is a later '71, and is basically totaled. It had a touch of rust under the battery box when the current owner's son spun it and slid into a telephone pole between 2 and 3 years ago.

No body panels are undamaged, and the driver's frame rail is collapsed. So the body shell is trash. The engine is supposed to have been in great shape prior to the accident, but the fan was pushed into the radiator and so it hasn't been started in close to 3 years, and I have no easy way to confirm its condition. Until I have a chance to look into it in depth, I have to consider it to be a core.

Besides the engine, it has an early Type A 4 speed that I could keep as a spare, or sell. The engine has a decent looking header and 2 1/2" exhaust. The rear differential is the one I want (3.36:1 to match my 4 speed). The console is darn nice. Rear glass is good, with the proper vertical defroster grid (that is said to work) and professionally tinted. The turn signal switch seems good. Nice gauges (although the clock appears to not work). The radiator does not seem to have been damaged by the fan, and was only a year or so old at the time of the accident. The front bumper bar MIGHT be salvageable. I'm told the springs and shocks are all Tokico, and fairly fresh. Dash is about the same as mine, one small crack in the center. A badly corroded set of 14" six spoke ZX alloys, and decent looking 4 screw carbs. Other miscellaneous parts too, of course.

So next Sunday I go to pick it up, not nearly as far to go, only about 40 miles round-trip. Once I get it home, the first thing on the list is to try to assess the engine condition. Once that has been dealt with (one way or another), much of the rest of the summer and fall will be devoted to stripping everything useful from the wrecked shell so that I can get it hauled off to be crushed. Some parts may be transferred directly into the yellow car, others may be stored, and some will be offered for sale.

But anyway you look at it, it changes the current emphasis of the project significantly. Pictures and more details after the car gets here.

[Arne]

15 Jul 2006 - Second Z is Here

I picked up the parts car today, and spent part of the afternoon looking it over. It is a later '71, HLS30-27602 built 4/71. It is seriously damaged, but still has a fair number of useable parts, some that will go on my car, some I'll keep as spares, and some I'll sell.

Details will come as I pull parts off of the shell, but the engine in this car appears that it may be useable as-is, at least for a while. (Yes Dad, that means I'm going to need your cherry picker soon.) If so, the yellow car will be fairly road worthy in a much shorter time. I'm going to be checking into that more tomorrow, so my next entry (whenever I get around to it) will have more on that and other good (and not-so-good) parts.

[Arne]

16 Jul 2006 - Car 2, Day 2

It's the hot part of the day now, so I'm inside where it's cool, making notes and plans.

But first - a bit of advice for anyone looking to do something like this: Car dollies are not the best choice if you are going to need to back the car into place.

I'd never used a dolly before, and while I had been warned that backing was difficult, I really didn't understand that trying to back a car on a dolly into place is not just difficult, but virtually impossible. You see, dollies have a pivot so that the vehicle tows nicely. But that pivot makes it so that attempting to back up (especially uphill and around a bend, as I was attempting) creates a wonderful zig-zag jack-knife as the car goes one way, the dolly goes another, and the tow vehicle is helpless to do anything about either. We spent almost two hours fruitlessly trying to figure out how to beat the system, since the car doesn't run and really doesn't even roll well with broken steering. Eventually we gave up, dumped it in the street, and used the winch on the front of the F-350 with a pulley block anchored to a fence post to tow the car into position.

That was yesterday. Today I began pulling parts. All sorts of them. The best finds so far have been the center console, turn signal switch, front bumper and surprisingly, the driver's door. Lots of little things, I've got to start boxing them all up as I go. Some of the other fun stuff includes: a fifth steel wheel in the spare well, complete with a nice 175HR14 Michelin XAS tire; various interior parts and tools; a nice replacement power antenna; and a heater box complete with a new core and control valve that is better than the one I have been working on.

Obviously the big item is the engine. After looking it over, I'm going to stick it in the yellow car and give it a try. It is virtually the same as the one my car would have originally come with, even down to the semi-rare early head casting. I pulled all the plugs and looked into the cylinders, and found no sign of moisture or rust. The plugs were all clean and nice tan color, so it looks like it was running well when it died. I then pulled the cam cover off, and found that it was nice and clean in there too. No sign of even condensation rust on the cam lobes, everything looks great. The engine spins freely by hand, or with the starter. (Although the starter does seem to labor a bit. It is very rusty-looking, and the battery was damaged in the accident and soaked the starter with acid. So I suspect that it is trash anyway.)

So as soon as it cools off some, I'm going to go back out and pick up tools and clean up for the day. The yellow car has already been equipped with a left front elbow vent tube (you 240Z owners know what I mean), the front bumper and the driver's door. It's amazing what a visual improvement even a tweaked front bumper makes. But of course, now the car has a dark blue-green door, so that doesn't help its looks any. (But at least this one's mostly straight.)

[Arne]

23 Jul 2006 - Working Indoors

With the temperature pushing 105º F (40º C) both days this weekend, I saw no reason to risk heatstroke slaving away outside. So I did a few things outdoors on the cars early Saturday morning before the heat got bad, and spent the rest of my car time this weekend here in the house.

First thing yesterday was to re-visit the front bumper. I removed the mangled over-riders, and gently straightened a few of the tweaked spots. After doing that, it bolted back up to the car very nicely. It looks pretty good now, and will definitely be repairable by a chrome shop.

I then pulled all three of the center gauges out of the parts car, and put the amp/fuel and temp/oil gauges into the yellow car as they are much nicer. I took the clock into the house, where I disassembled, cleaned and lubed it. Took a couple hours, including all the testing. When I finished it, I put it into the yellow car as well. And the work appears to have paid off - it has been running for over 24 hours so far, and actually keeping fairly reasonable time, too. I now have something almost as rare as the hubcaps - an early 240Z clock that works!

Pretty much everything else I did happened in the house. I've cleaned and prepped the heater control panel from the parts car in preparation for getting all that stuff in place. The original heater panel isn't bad, it's better than most, actually. But the one from the parts car is better, so in it goes. I also cleaned up the heater box from the parts car. You might remember that I removed the heater box from the yellow car a while back to refurbish it. Well, the prior owner of the parts car had done the same to it - the heater box was sitting on the bench ready to go (with a new core and control valve) when the accident occurred. So it didn't take much to get ready, and is also nicer shape than the one from the yellow car.

I also looked over the turn signal switch from the parts car. You may recall that the switch in mine looks good, but has a very sloppy stalk and is not very positive in its action to the right. After looking the one from the parts car over, the only thing I could find wrong with it was the finish on the stalk. So I refinished it. It now looks and feels like new, inside and out. I'll have to wait until I install it to see how it works.

That's about it for this weekend. I'm going to start looking over the engine in the parts car to see what odds and ends I need to get before attempting to swap it into the yellow car. Mostly things like hoses and clamps and such. But getting the engine swapped is my next priority.

[Arne]

30 Jul 2006 - Some Disassembly Required

Spent most of Saturday disassembling the parts car. About the only thing I did to the yellow car was to install the freshly re-painted turn signal switch from the parts car. Looks and works almost like new, much better than the old switch.

I also pulled the steering knuckles off for a fellow Z owner in Washington state. His 240Z is very early production, and replacement ball joints are not available to fit the knuckles on his car. But the knuckles from my parts car will fit his car, and replacement ball joints are still available for them.

I then stripped most of the interior of the parts car. About all that is left inside is the dash pad itself. It did not have nearly as much useable stuff as I had thought. But then again, I don't need all that much in the interior anyway. I am removing the entire wiring harness, and may end up putting it all into my car at some point. While I have already replaced the dash harnesses, the engine harness in my car is still a bit suspect, and the one from the parts car is pretty nice and un-modified. Shoot, it still has points in the distributor!

The clock is still running, it is now +2 minutes over the entire 7 days, which means it has gained 4 minutes in the past five days as it was -2 after 36 hours. I'll reset it tomorrow and let it go another week and see what it does.

[Arne]

7 Aug 2006 - Long Weekend

I had three days off this weekend, and was able to spend a lot of that time working on the cars.

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Saturday

Finally got the front carb off the parts car, the strut tower was pushed so far towards the engine that there wasn't enough room to slide the carb off the studs. I had to unbolt the driver's side motor mount so I could shift the engine to get it off. As a test (prior to selling them on eBay) I bolted both carbs on my car as is and fired it up. And they aren't too bad. It started right up and ran fairly well. Seemed a bit lean to me, but that's probably to be expected, they were tuned for a stock L24 but mine is (for the time being) 400 cc bigger. The piston in the front carb sticks at one spot, looks to me as if the bell got bumped in the accident and may have ever-so-slightly dimpled it. If they were the only round-tops I had, I'd probably send them to ZTherapy and let them do it right. But since the ones I already had on the yellow car both work and look better, the new set is eBay fodder.

Then I got the engine compartment wiring harness out of the parts car, which was more work than I thought it'd be. I had to really work to get it from behind the master cylinders, I feared the body damage may have pinched it. But I was able to get it out intact. Comparing it to what is in my car now, I keep finding more small differences between the manual and automatic wiring. Nothing major, just little things here and there. I still suspect that I will eventually swap the entire harness into my car, fusebox and all.

Some of you may remember that I didn't plan to put my new Euro springs in until next Spring or later. Well, like it has in other parts of the project as well, the acquisition of the parts car changed that. You see, the parts car has a fairly fresh set of Eibach lowering springs, that I will want to sell. To sell them, I need some other springs to put on the parts car so that I can keep it mobile enough to haul to the crusher later. The obvious answer is to put the new Euro springs on the yellow car, then put the 35 year old stock springs on the parts car and sell the Eibachs. The shocks on the parts car are Tokicos, and are supposed to be pretty fresh. But I don't think I really want to use Tokicos, and a couple of them may have already started to leak, so those are probably not worth taking off the parts car.

So late Saturday afternoon, I started on the spring swap. I got the Euro spring installed on the left front, and the stock spring into the parts car. And that was where I left it at the end of the day.

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Sunday

I continued the spring swap project on Sunday. It was sunny and fairly warm, but not unbearable. I finished the front springs on both cars, and got the Eibachs out of the rear of the parts car as well. Swapped a few other parts around while I had the suspension apart, so that the yellow car's front is now the best of both cars - it's actually pretty good. Eventually I'll want to replace the strut cartridges, but they will do for now.

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Monday

Accomplished a little less on Monday. Had the radiator out of the parts car looked at, and decided to order a new replacement. The damage would have required it to be recored, and a new one was about the same price. I also ordered a number of hoses and cooling system parts from the local Nissan dealer, they should be here in a week. It is a little surprising how many parts are still available from the dealers.

Last thing for the day was I dismounted the spare tire from the parts car, and prepped the wheel for paint. I'll paint the wheel soon, and next weekend I'll start final prep for pulling the parts car's engine.

[Arne]

14 Aug 2006 - Win Some, Lose Some

Well, less has happened since the last update than I had hoped. But that's pretty normal. I picked up the new radiator and and the new cooling parts from the dealer last week, but that's about as far as that went. Except that the new stuff looks so good, and was surprisingly affordable, so I ordered a couple of final parts today. About all that's left now for cooling replacement is the waterpump itself, and that was supposed to be almost new on the parts car, being replaced just prior to the accident. The water pump is pretty easy to get to on these engines, so I think I'll let it be for now.

Had some other commitments on Saturday, so I didn't want to get tied up on anything major. Rather than pick up on the spring swap project, I took a look at the driver's door. The door off the parts car still had the blue car's door lock, the window had issues, and had no mirror. (The blue car's prior owner had installed fender mirrors.) I removed the interior door panel so I could look into all these items. Swapped the yellow car's door lock in, so now the car is keyed alike again. Then I found that the door was missing the lower window stop, so I used one from the passenger door of the parts car. I re-adjusted all the window mechanism and tracks, too. Last, I found that what was done to plug the mirror mounting holes in the door was easily reversible, and got the original mirror installed.

On Sunday, I got back to swapping springs. That also took longer than I had planned. (See any recurring themes here?)But I did get it finished. The car sits a bit taller than I had hoped with the new springs, but a test drive showed that the ride is just about what I was expecting - a bit firm, but not harsh.

Of course, not everything can be good. During the test drive, another of the numerous coolant fittings that were capped off during the installation of the later motor sprung a leak. I wasn't far from home, and made it back without trouble. But it illustrates why I've been gathering the parts to replace ALL of the cooling system during the engine swap. It also means that the car can't be driven now until I do the cooling system, which won't happen until I swap the engine. Soon, I hope...

[Arne]

21 Aug 2006 - Swap Prep, Part 1

This past weekend I spent some more time getting ready for the upcoming engine swap. Which, by the way, I have decided to do over Labor Day weekend. Preparation for this event was the focus last weekend, and will be for next weekend as well.

On Saturday, I re-installed the heater box. Or rather - re-installed "a" heater box, not the original heater box. I had pulled the one from my car a while back to refurbish it. Coincidentally, the prior owner of the parts car had done the same shortly before the car was totaled. It turns out that he got farther along in rebuilding his heater box than I had, and his was in better shape to begin with. So the box from the parts car went into mine.

I also started stripping the paint off the spare wheel. A lot of work, but it's my own fault. I really hadn't planned on doing that much prep just for a spare. But I did want to prep it for a fresh coat of flat black paint, so last weekend I sanded it lightly, and shot a coat of black on it. And as the paint dried, I remembered that I had used up my flat black paint, and the paint I had thought was flat when I just applied it was really gloss. After it dried, I got some more flat black and gave it a coat. And of course, the two different paints were incompatible, and so now I had a wrinkle-finish on my spare wheel. That led to me applying paint stripper on Saturday.

On Sunday, I primed and painted the spare wheel, and late in the day remounted the tire. It now looks right, and the finish - while not perfect - is plenty good enough for a spare.

But most of Sunday was devoted to getting the engine in the parts car ready to be pulled. I've got it pretty well stripped now, most everything other than the header is off. As I pull things, I look it over carefully, and so far everything looks really good. I'm really feeling pretty optimistic about this engine. Of course, I've been wrong before.

On the parts front, I've got a couple more parts for the swap on order from Nissan, they should be here any day. I bid on and won a jack and tool set on eBay, it was shipped earlier today. And I have started selling a few parts from or freed up by the parts car, the proceeds of which will be plowed right back into my car.

Next week, final prep for the engine swap...

[Arne]

27 Aug 2006 - Swap Prep, Part 2

I think I'm ready. Or pretty close to ready, anyway. On Saturday I spent a little time sorting parts and organizing. As part of that I got the spare tire aired back up and correctly bolted down in the spare well. Saturday morning also was when the jack, jack handle, lug wrench and tool bag that I bought on eBay arrived. These parts (along with the factory wheel chocks that came with the parts car) complete the tool selection, and were also mounted in the car. I also replaced the ugly, rusty-looking aftermarket cast iron brake drums on my car with the original aluminum drums off the parts car. Much better looking than before.

Later in the day, I went back to prepping the motor in the parts car again. I drained both the transmission and engine oil, removed the driveshaft, shift lever and header. At this point, all that is left is to unbolt the final motor mount, and lift it out.

This morning I spent just a bit of time doing things to the yellow car. I worked on the front bumper a bit (reworking the left side mount), replaced the front sway bar bushings with the poly bushings off the parts car, and set the toe-in on the front suspension.

Between now and Friday, I need to pick up a few more things - oil, filter, gaskets, clamps, manifold studs, etc. So cross your fingers, and I'll report back next week.